Ag Sector Council Recap: Preventing Post-Harvest Loss

This month's Ag Sector Council featured an in depth investigation into the issue of postharvest loss (for a post that recaps the event, click here). We were fortunate to have Bob Rabatsky of Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation online as a featured contributor on the webinar where he fielded questions from online participants and provided insight on the topic. Partnering for Innovation provides assistance in the commercialization of postharvest technologies, among many other things, and his insights were a welcome addition to the online forum. Here are some of the resources he shared:

Bob explained, "We've seen a lot of the CoolBot-like technology lately, which has been great. This Solar-Powered Shed is a great example of post-harvest tech making the leap from the US to the developing world. Like the architect says, 'Turns out, what’s good for vending machines at universities in Ohio is good for cabbages on farms in India.'"

Bob gave a nice shoutout to Steve Sonka during his presentation: "For those of you interested in resources from the ADM Institute, they do a fantastic weekly email on PostHarvest Loss in the News and you can subscribe here." And in reference to some figures Steve was citing during his presentation noted that, "another look at PHL figures comes from the World Bank."

In regards to a question about market forces shifting the postharvest loss landscape, Bob pointed out that Partnering for Innovation is "running a project intended to support the commercialization of technolgies that can help smallholder productivity. In (their) first round of grants (they) found about 30% of the technology companies & organizations that applied for commercialization grants focused on postharvest technologies. You can learn more here."

While Philippe Villers spoke about GrainPro Bob gave a quick nod to many of the other postharvest technologies out there: "there are a number of technologies becoming available to smaller traders and smallholders for grain storage...very important development which GrainPro is contributing. Another example (link here) is that a household metal silo w/ 1000kg capacity can feed family of 5 for a year. An important question to answer as we promote these is what are the costs of the storage technology, and what are the benefits to the potential user."

And finally, as the presentations drew to a close Bob reminded everyone that they can find more information on Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation, and get assistance in the commercialization of postharvest technologies, by visiting partneringforinnovation.org

Some of the key resources shared by other webinar particpants are below.

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